1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a clutch device with a friction transmission element through which an operative connection between a drive and an output can be produced or canceled. The friction transmission element has a base with at least one friction surface, at least one control element for acting on energy accumulators of a damping device, and at least one radial support which acts under the influence of speed, cooperates with a stop and has a plurality of lugs which extend at least substantially radially in direction toward the stop and which are at least substantially brought closer to the stop up to a gap before the stop when the friction transmission element is stationary, while, at speed, at least a portion of the lugs comes in contact with the stop at speed after overcoming the gap.
2. Background/Description of the Related Art
A clutch device of the type mentioned above is known from U.S. Pat. No. 9,010,507 B2. As can be seen particularly from FIG. 9, the clutch device is arranged in a housing of a hydrodynamic torque converter, and the friction transmission element is provided axially between a radial wall of the housing and a clutch element of the clutch device that is controllable through pressure gradients. The friction transmission element is brought into a frictionally engaging connection with the radial wall of the housing in that the clutch element is brought axially closer to the friction transmission element. Preferably, friction facings are provided at the friction transmission element axially between the friction transmission element and the radial wall of the housing and axially between the friction transmission element and the clutch element. When there is a frictionally engaging connection, the clutch device is engaged, whereas the clutch device is disengaged when the clutch element has released the friction transmission element and the frictionally engaging connection is accordingly canceled. The lugs of the radial support are aligned at least substantially axial to the base of the friction transmission element and have only a small axial overlap with the stop which is implemented at an energy accumulator guide for the energy accumulators of the damping device. During contact, this can lead to considerable internal stress on components owing to the very small mutual contact surfaces. Further, it cannot be ruled out that the lugs will miss the stop axially, especially since the friction transmission element is subject to an axial displacement during its engaging movement or disengaging movement and could therefore be moved out of the axial extension region of the stop under unfavorable conditions. In this case, the radially support with respect to the friction transmission element might not take effect. Apart from this, the axial distance between the lugs and the energy accumulators is relatively large, which fosters substantial unwanted degrees of freedom of the energy accumulators in axial direction.
It is an object of the present invention to configure a friction transmission element of a clutch device in such a way that a radial support can reliably take place without considerable stresses on component parts, but unacceptably large axial degrees of freedom of the energy accumulators of a damping device are prevented.